Radar detectors warn drivers of the use of police radar, and the potential for traffic law citations if the driver exceeds the speed limit. The FCC has allocated several regions of the electromagnetic spectrum for police radar use. The bands used by police radar are generally known as the X, K and Ka bands. Each relates to a different part of the spectrum. The X and K bands are relatively narrow frequency ranges, whereas the Ka band is a relatively wide range of frequencies. By the early 1990's, police radar evolved to the point that it could operate almost anywhere in the 1600-megahertz wide Ka band. During that time radar detectors kept pace with models that included descriptive names like “Ultra Wide” and “Super Wide.” More recently, police have begun to use laser (optical) systems for detecting speed. This technology was termed LIDAR for “LIght Detection And Ranging.”
Radar detectors typically comprise a microwave receiver and detection circuitry that is typically realized with a microprocessor or digital signal processor (DSP). Microwave receivers are generally capable of detecting microwave components in the X, K, and very broad Ka band. In various solutions, either a microprocessor or DSP is used to make decisions about the signal content from the microwave receiver. Systems including a digital signal processor have been shown to provide superior performance over solutions based on conventional microprocessors due to the DSP's ability to find and distinguish signals that are buried in noise. Various methods of applying DSP's were disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,954,828, 5,079,553, 5,049,885, and 5,134,406, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
Police use of laser has also been countered with laser detectors, such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,206,500, 5,347,120 and 5,365,055, each of which is incorporated herein by reference. Products are now available that combined laser detection into a single product with a microwave receiver, to provide comprehensive protection.
The DSP or microprocessor in a modern radar detector is programmable. Accordingly, it can be instructed to manage all of the user interface features such as input switches, lights, sounds, as well as generate control and timing signals for the microwave receiver and/or laser detector. Early in the evolution of the radar detector, consumers sought products that offered a better way to manage the audible volume and duration of warning signals. Good examples of these solutions are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,631,542, 5,164,729, 5,250,951, and 5,300,932, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference, which provide methods for conditioning the response generated by the radar detector.
Methods for conditioning detector response are gaining importance, because there are an increasing number of signals present in the X, K, and Ka bands from products that are completely unrelated to police radar. These products share the same regions of the spectrum and are also licensed by the FCC. The growing number of such signals is rapidly undermining the credibility of radar detector performance. Radar detectors cannot tell the difference between emissions from many of these devices and true police radar systems. As a result, radar detectors are increasingly generating false alarms, effectively “crying wolf”, reducing the significance of warnings from radar detectors. Among the possible sources of false alarms are microwave door openers, public safety systems such as ARTEMIS, and other radar detectors. At this time, there are very few signal sources that can cause false laser detections in comparison to the substantial list of false microwave signals just described. However certain locations near airports have been demonstrated to cause such problems for various laser detector products. The issue of false signals and ways of addressing geographically fixed false sources, is addressed in the above-referenced U.S. Pat. No. 6,670,905, in which the characteristics of false sources are stored with reference to the GPS-based location of the source, so that in subsequent encounters the false source may be ignored or the response to that source conditioned.
Vehicle electronics continue to increase in sophistication; GPS receivers and satellite receivers are now commonplace. Furthermore, wireless (typically Bluetooth) connectivity to cellular telephones and cellular networks has become commonplace, permitting hands free operation and in some circumstances, Internet or text messaging (SMS) connectivity within the vehicle electronic systems. As these vehicle electronic systems continue to propagate and increase in complexity, increasingly sophisticated functionality will be available to drivers from their vehicle electronics.
For example, a common problem with navigation devices with GPS capability is that data on the device may not updated. As such, when a user inputs into his or her navigation device the location that he or she wishes to go to, the navigation device will typically calculate the route or routes to the location using the data that is not updated stored on the device. The data may have been input into the navigation device when the navigation device was first purchased, sometimes months or years beforehand, and as such, the route or routes are calculated with data that is not updated. But to improve the calculation of routes, some navigation devices may request that a server calculate the route or routes. For instance, the server may include traffic data and therefore the route(s) the server calculates may take into account the traffic data. The server then may transmit back to the navigation device a route that does not appear to have any traffic jams. Thus, some navigation devices with GPS capability have modems built into the devices to receive the route or routes from the server.
Furthermore, some navigation devices download traffic data from servers. The device typically needs to initiate the contact with the server by requesting the traffic data, otherwise, the server does not communicate with the device. Thus, some navigation devices with GPS capability have modems built into the devices to receive updated traffic data.
Data may also be transmitted, typically one way, from a sub-carrier or stations to a navigation device to display the name of the song and artist for a song playing in the vehicle. This data may be transmitted by FM broadcast and/or received by a modem of the navigation device.
Moreover, an application from Trapster is available for iPhone devices, BlackBerry devices, some Android devices, some Nokia devices, and other devices, which follows a driver's location as a dot on a map via GPS capability, and when the driver passes a police officer lurking by the side of the road with a radar gun, the driver may tap on his or her iPhone, for example, to mark the location as a speed trap point. That data point may then be sent to a server so that other drivers using Trapster can then be alerted of that speed trap when they approach that point on the map. The driver may report the location of live police traps (e.g. police with radar or laser guns set up), red light cameras, speed cameras, or usual police hiding spots, using the shortcut keys or menu items on the mobile phone. Thus, via the application, the iPhone may transmit to and receive data from Trapster's server.
In particular, the driver may view on his or her iPhone screen a list of the traps near the driver and the distance to each one, with the data received from the server. The application gives the driver data about when the trap was reported, the confidence level, and who reported it, and allows the driver to rate traps that were reported by other users based on whether the driver agrees or disagrees with a trap. Colors are used to indicate the “confidence” of the trap, and the confidence is incremented when different users report the same trap at the same location from their mobile device or when users rate traps via the Trapster website. Further, if a driver reports a trap, and others corroborate that report, then that driver's Karma score goes up as well.
Besides viewing the traps, the driver may be alerted (e.g., audio alerts) when he or she approaches previously reported traps, and may also get alerts for new live police reports in his or her area via text message. Indeed, some versions support viewing traps on a map, while in others, the alerts are shown as a textual description in the main application window.
Although the enhancements described have aided drivers, nonetheless, further enhancements may be made to reduce inaccuracies and improve a driver's experience.